Automation in general is the use of various control systems for operating equipment such as machinery, processes in factories, telephone network switching, etc., with minimal or reduced human intervention. Some processes have even been completely automated and result in a significant reduction of human labor, energy and materials, while improving quality, accuracy and precision. While the seeds of automation were planted at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, true automation has increasingly become more dominant in recent decades, concurrently with the integration of computer processing to provide the desired precision control.
As industries grew in size and scope, so too did the need to for increased space for storage of products manufactured by the various producers in the industries. The increased demand for products requires increasingly greater areas for storage of those products during the time period between production and distribution, or between different distribution stages. Consequently, large dedicated buildings, conventionally referred to as “warehouses,” were constructed for such storage. To facilitate efficient storage and retrieval of the items, accurate data must be maintained relative to the quantity and placement of items in the warehouse so that the items can be retrieved with minimal searching and on an as-needed basis. Prior to automation, when an item needed to be retrieved, a worker would receive a request for an item, research the storage location, travel to the location and pick up the desired quantity, and then return to the point of origin for further distribution. As the cost of labor increased, such labor intensive methods for the storage and retrieval of warehoused items became cost prohibitive and warehousing readily lent itself to adopt forms of automation to keep such costs in control.
Traditional warehousing has declined since the last decades of the 20th century, with the gradual introduction of improved efficiencies such as “just-in-time” delivery techniques. The just-in-time system promotes product delivery directly from suppliers to the consumer without the use of warehouses. However, with the growth of a global economy, international shipment of goods over significantly large distances still necessitates a certain amount of warehousing. Additionally, recent retailing trends have led to the development of warehouse-style retail stores, also known as big-box stores. These high ceiling buildings display retail goods on tall, heavy-duty industrial racks, rather than on conventional retail shelving. Typically, items ready for sale are on the bottom of the racks and palletized inventory is stored on the upper racks. When the palletized inventory is required to be accessed, a forklift is utilized to remove the pallets from the upper racks for display on the lower racks. As such, the storage and retrieval system is floor based, or ground based, wherein the equipment utilized to move the product is supported by, and travels across, the floor.
Large warehouses utilizing automated storage and retrieval systems also rely upon floor or ground based equipment for the movement of warehoused product within the warehouse. Such systems include warehousing concepts such as a pallet shuttle, wherein a forklift sets a load atop a pallet shuttle which then moves along a track in the storage rack to deposit the load in the correct location. The use of a pallet shuttle system has the advantage of being high density and semi-automatic. A movable rack system incorporates racks which are laterally movable on a designated set of linear tracks such that the racks can be laterally translated to create an aisle for a forklift or other mechanism to retrieve inventory from a designated rack. This system also has the advantage of being high density and permits direct access to any pallet stored on the racks. Other systems incorporate automated stacker cranes to replace manned forklifts and can reach storage locations up to approximately fifty (50) feet in height. This system can be utilized for heavy pallets as well as for individual boxes, totes or trays.
However, the above-mentioned systems all utilize floor or ground based equipment, which is often height limited and thus often results in wasted, unused space at the upper reaches of the building. Accordingly, there is a clear need for an automated, accurate and efficient, warehousing system that is ceiling based to facilitate optimized maximum use of the building interior space.